The tea party was over, we thought. Not quite a decade old, the right-wing populist movement that once seemed poised to be an enduring force in national politics had burned out, overtaken by a more virulent strand of populism led by President Trump. But when Trump dismissed Rex Tillerson as […] Read more »
Forms of polarization
We regularly hear that American politics is polarized. Those doing the talking mean very different things by the term. Some look at any 50/50 division as “polarized,” though such a definition does not comport particularly well with the history of the term. For others, polarization refers to deep differences. That […] Read more »
Is Trump Giving Authoritarianism a Bad Name?
In the past two years, a wave of distressing commentary has stressed the fragility of American democracy and the potential, inspired by President Trump, for emerging authoritarianism. But a year into the Trump administration, Americans are rejecting authoritarian alternatives to democracy. In a new survey by the Democracy Fund Voter […] Read more »
While Most Americans Prefer Democracy, More Than One in Four Express Sympathy for Authoritarian Politics
Americans’ support for an authoritarian leader declined for the first time in two decades, according to a new report from the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group. “Follow the Leader: Exploring American Support for Democracy and Authoritarianism,” nevertheless finds worrying developments among the 29% of Americans who say that an authoritarian […] Read more »
More U.S. College Students Say Campus Climate Deters Speech
Sixty-one percent of U.S. college students agree that the climate on their campus prevents some people from expressing their views because others might find them offensive. In 2016, 54% of college students held this view. These results are based on a 2017 Gallup/Knight Foundation survey of 3,014 randomly sampled U.S. […] Read more »
8 ways college student views on free speech are evolving
As college campuses across the United States grapple with questions surrounding the power and limits of free expression, a new Gallup-Knight Foundation survey of U.S. college students provides a view into how attitudes about the First Amendment on college campuses are evolving and what that means for our democracy. The […] Read more »